The aristocratic optimates had gained the upper hand over the reformers, and ambitious tributes thought twice before messing with the establishment.

贵族的贵族派占据了改革派的上风有野心的护民官也不敢轻举妄动。

While the members of the Senate's aristocratic faction, or optimates, seethed, the minions of the so-called First Triumvirate maintained their stranglehold on Roman politics.

公关行为，尽管元老院的贵族派系成员，也就是各元老怒不可遏，所谓的前三头同盟的成员还是一直控制着罗马的政治。

On the other side were the Senatorial optimates, allied with the assassins of Caesar or the so-called republicans, led by the silver-tongued old statesman Cicero.

另一方是元老院元老和凯撒的刺杀者组成的联盟。凯撒刺杀者就是所谓的共和制拥护者，这一派由雄辩的资深政治家西塞罗领导。

For its part, the Senatorial optimates chose one of the consuls for eighty seven BC, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, a patrician and once Marius's trusted lieutenant.

而元老院选择了卢修斯·科尼利厄斯·苏拉，公元前87年的执政官之一，苏拉出身贵族，曾是马略的心腹中尉。